Day 31-Growing in Grace and Knowledge

Therefore, dear friends, while you wait for these things, make every effort to be found in peace without spot or blemish before Him. Also, regard the patience of our Lord as [an opportunity for] salvation, just as our dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you. He speaks about these things in all his letters, in which there are some matters that are hard to understand. The untaught and unstable twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.

Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of the immoral and fall from your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. 2 Peter 3:14-18

Peter ends his letter, with the exhortation to be on guard against the lies and persuasions of this world. We should not be ignorant in our faith but instead growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ Jesus. While growing takes time and discipline, it is not unattainable. Nor is growth watered and fed through another’s encounter or experience with the Lord. Growth in Christ is attained by none other than personal time with the Savior.

May this prayer by Charles Spurgeon be our hearts cry as well as we seek to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My soul, never be satisfied with a shadowy Christ. I cannot know Christ through another person’s brains. I cannot love him with another man’s heart, and I cannot see him with another man’s eyes…I am so afraid of living in a second-hand religion. Lord save us from having borrowed communion. No, I must know him myself. O God, let me not be deceived in this…I must know him on my own account.